National debit = $7,989,493,970,116.21 Where are the fiscal conservatives

[paineinthearse]

...but is anyone listening? Will the Blue Dog message resonate?

If you live in a conservative area or "red" state I hope you find this information useful. Try this:

"Currently, the U.S. Debt is estimated at:
$7,989,493,970,116.21

Your share of today's public debt is:
$26,859.96

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) is speaking now live on the floor (CSPAN). I've not seen a Blue Dog member speak since Charlie Stenholm (who lost his seat during the DeLay congressional redistricting). Stenholm lost his seat due to this illegal redistricting. Other former members whose websites are dead are Jim Turner and Baron Hill.

Have the Blue Dogs been sleeping? Glad to see they are making a noise, even if it a whimper. Their old website is dead - http://baronhill.house.gov/bluedogs/

So I googled "blue dog coalition" and found their new site at http://www.house.gov/tanner/blue.htm & http://www.house.gov/cardoza/BlueDogs/bluedogs.shtml

Now don't shoot me as a supporter, I am just posting this as information. It's about time we hears some noise from the fiscal conservatives:



The Blue Dog Coalition is a group of 35 moderate to conservative Democrats in the 109th Congress.
Rep. Joe Baca (CA)
Rep. John Barrow (GA)
Rep. Marion Berry (AR)
Rep. Sanford Bishop (GA)
Rep. Dan Boren (OK)
Rep. Leonard Boswell (IA)
Rep. Allen Boyd (FL)
Rep. Dennis Cardoza (CA)
Rep. Ed Case (HI)
Rep. Ben Chandler (KY)
Rep. Jim Cooper (TN)
Rep. Jim Costa (CA)
Rep. Robert E. “Bud” Cramer (AL)
Rep. Lincoln Davis (TN)
Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (TN)
Rep. Jane Harman (CA)
Rep. Stephanie Herseth (SD)
Rep. Tim Holden (PA)
Rep. Steve Israel (NY)
Rep. Mike McIntyre (NC)
Rep. Jim Matheson (UT)
Rep. Charles Melancon (LA)
Rep. Mike Michaud (ME)
Rep. Dennis Moore (KS)
Rep. Collin Peterson (MN)
Rep. Earl Pomeroy (ND)
Rep. Mike Ross (AR)
Rep. John Salazar (CO)
Rep. Loretta Sanchez (CA)
Rep. Adam Schiff (CA)
Rep. David Scott (GA)
Rep. John Tanner (TN)
Rep. Ellen Tauscher (CA)
Rep. Gene Taylor (MS)
Rep. Mike Thompson (CA)

The Blue Dog Coalition - celebrating 10 years of leadership in 2005 - has built a reputation as a serious player in the policy arena, promoting positions which bridge the gap between ideological extremes. Many of the group's policy proposals have been praised as fair, responsible, and positive additions to a Congressional environment too often marked as partisan and antagonistic.

The 35 conservative and moderate Democrats in the group hail from every region of the country, although the group acknowledges some southern ancestry which accounts for the group's nickname. Taken from the South's longtime description of a party loyalist as one who would vote for a yellow dog if it were on the ballot as a Democrat, the "Blue Dog" moniker was taken by members of The Coalition because their moderate-to-conservative-views had been "choked blue" by their party in the years leading up to the 1994 election.

The Coalition was formed in the 104th Congress as a policy-oriented group to give moderate and conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives a common sense, bridge-building voice within the institution.

Most agree that, since then, the Blue Dogs have successfully injected a moderate viewpoint into the Democratic Caucus, where group members now find greater receptiveness to their opinions. In fact, the continuing political success of "Blue Pups" in the 1998, 2000, and 2002, 2004 elections points to the public's approval of the centrist, fiscally responsible message represented by The Coalition. Since 1996, eighteen Blue Dogs won their seats by defeating a Republican incumbent.

The Coalition has been particularly active on fiscal issues, relentlessly pursuing a balanced budget and then protecting that achievement from politically popular "raids" on the budget. Past Coalition budgets have won the endorsement of the nonpartisan Concord Coalition and multiple newspaper and magazine editorials. As one column pointed out, the Blue Dogs have proven that "common sense, conservative economics and compassion aren't necessarily mutually exclusive."

Blue Dog Coalition proposals have served as middle-ground markers which laid the foundation for the bipartisanship necessary to bring about fundamental reforms, and helped set into law policies reflecting the "common sense, conservative compassion" so often attached to the group's efforts.

In the 109th Congress, the Coalition intends to continue to make a difference in Congress by forging middle-ground, bipartisan answers to the current challenges facing the Country. A top priority will be to refocus Congress on balancing the budget and ridding taxpayers of the burden the debt places on them. The group also expects to be involved in a variety of issues, where the stale extreme left vs. right approach requires a breath of fresh air.

[sam sarrha]

1. I read an article from them, they are cutting back on aid to the poor and

soldiers they support so much and the elderly health care.. cross the board on all social projects.. but not a cent off the Pork they love so much slow cooked with graft and corruption..

the Rich will not see the loss of one cent so the economy is safe is guess..

[paineinthearse]

3. Link please?

This sounds more like a rethug plan than a Blue Dog plan.

[sam sarrha]

11. here, Republicans are like dog shit,some smell worse but its all SHIT.link>

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/oct2005/cuts-o14.shtml :puke:

[paineinthearse]

14. thank you

[Cactus44]

2. All the fiscal conservatives are Dems, and they're in the minority right

now, so you don't hear much from them. Hopefully that will change soon.

[welshTerrier2]

4. balanced budgets should be supported by both left and right

sound fiscal policy is not, or should not be, a political spectrum issue ...

anyone who advocates bankrupting the treasury with deficits, be they left or right, is promoting bankrupt ideas ...

[Cactus44]

5. "Reagan tought us that nobody cares about deficits" - Dick Cheney n/m

.

[mrcheerful]

6. Fiscal Conservatives?

For the life of me I can not remember one repuke that wasn't acting like a crack head with an stolen Visa card with unlimited credit. When are people going to learn? Its always been the Dem's that taxed according to how they spent. Repukes always gave away to the rich and put spending on americas tab. Just because Ronnie ( I deal in coke ) Reagan said he was fiscally responsible, the rw thinks its true, yet never bothered looking into his spending spree. Thats the repuke and Conservatives for you, promise the moon and then sell america to the highest bidder.

[paineinthearse]

9. Thank you, but....

This thread is about the Blue Dogs, conservative and moderate Democrats who are traditionally fiscally conservative.

[mrcheerful]

10. And when did these people ever actually be fiscally responsible?

I have yet to see when the government ever worried about being fiscally responsible, Dem's who say they are seem to go along with the repukes and vote with them. When they get into a position to actually do something, they just find their own pork projects regardless of cost. Fiscally responsibility has never been a strong point of any government thats been in power, be they Dem's or repukes. The only thing that concerns me is where the tax dollar is spent and on who gets the lions share.This is just like saying moral values or good christen values, it depends on who is behind the person or group saying it.

[Telly Savalas]

18. The term fiscal conservative is deceptive though.

It implies an association between fiscal responsibility and conservative ideology which simply doesn't exist.

[RobertSeattle]

7. Debt has hit 8 Trillion!!!

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

[auburngrad82]

8. Remember when they had turned the national debt counter off?

Who was President then? Oh yeah, a Democrat. How's this for a T-Shirt:

Bush was elected and all we got was this 7 trillion dollar debt.

Or maybe:

Fiscally conservative, my ass.

[texpatriot2004]

12. Indeed, where are the true fiscally CONSERVATIVE people. nt

[greygandalf]

13. Is it possible we could go to "collections"?

I don't see how, there is no world financial overseer. If there was it is the US.

What if we just told China we are not paying? They are dependent on our investments.

[paineinthearse]

15. pssssssssssst

$7,989,493,970,116.21,

as in 8 TRILLION!

HELLO?

[mrcheerful]

17. And your point is?

We all know that GW has been running around like a crack addict with a stolen unlimited credit card running up bills he had no way to repay. Just like Reagan before him did. So what? I voted, I voiced my opinion at the poll. Then to have my vote stolen not once but twice and what was done about it before, during, or after? Where were my elected officials when it was found out that the Diebold crop had a voting machine that left no paper trail nor was anything said when it was showed to be very easy to be tampered with?

We the people are all to blame. The first 4 years of GW's war on the american working man not one finger was lifted to stop him. Since 2000 america has lost 5 million jobs over seas and due to tax cuts, Where were the people who were supposed to at the least slow this down? They went along with GW because he was popular and re-election was more important then fighting him and the rest of the republican party. Now Dem's are called weak and spineless, geeeeee i wonder why.

The Dem's did the same exact thing with Reagan, oh he is to well liked and we can't fight him, so lets give him what he wants. What ever happened to the days when Dem's would fight no matter what the odds were against them? Where are the FDR's, Truman's, JFK's and RFK's that said the hell with the powers that be, better to die free then be enslaved to corporate america. The america I see is as bad as any european country during Dickinson's time. Give to the rich and leave the rest to fight for the few jobs or beg on the streets.

We dishonor the real americans that fought and gave their lives up for an idea, freedom for all. Today we have corporate america lording over us and not allowing us to raise above where we were born. Work hard and survive is what american workers face and pray that your health doesn't fail or a loved one doesn't get sick.We let our elected public servants run amok and done nothing to stop them when they started pandering to special interest groups. We allowed our public servants to tell us how to live and how to make us safe, at the expense of our freedom to decide how we live or die. We forgot the lessons of our founding fathers and how much they hated the very same things going on today. Instead of teaching facts in the public class rooms we let myths fill our heads, Father I can not tell a lie, Honest Abe, The Boston tea party just to name a few.

I don't blame Reagan or Bush for doing what they done, We The People gave them the power to do so, instead of researching and learning about who the man was we voted for, we let TV, news reporters and spin doctors to do it for us and now we are voting on the best sound bites. Instead of trying to understand what a person is trying to say, we go for it sounds good so it must be true, then we find our selves with leaders like Nixon, Reagan, Bush, who forget that they are just a public servent and not leaders. We the people are to blame, we are lazy, self centered and think we know whats best for everyone yet we screw up our own lives every day.

[FormerRepublican]

16. What they don't tell you...

...is that $6.9 Trillion of it has gone to cronies, and the political plan to divert attention from fiscal mismanagement by our elected officials is to blame the poor, the disabled, the underpriviledged....

They're just a bunch of pigs feeding at the trough and claiming it's US eating all the slop.

I exaggerate, but not by much.